Risk Adjustment in Health Insurance Exchanges for Individuals With Mental Illness.

Objective: In 2014, an estimated 15 million individuals who currently do not have health insurance, including many with chronic mental illness, are expected to obtain coverage through state insurance exchanges. The authors examined how two mechanisms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), namely, risk ad...

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Publicado en:American Journal of Psychiatry Vol. 169; no. 7; pp. 704 - 710
Autores principales: Barry, Colleen L., Weiner, Jonathan P., Lemke, Klaus, Busch, Susan H.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. Jul2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Jul2012
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      pub: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.
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        10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.11071044
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        atl: Risk Adjustment in Health Insurance Exchanges for Individuals With Mental Illness.
      aug:
        au:
          Barry, Colleen L.
          Weiner, Jonathan P.
          Lemke, Klaus
          Busch, Susan H.
        affil:
          Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore
          School of Public Health, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
      su:
        United States
        Health insurance
        Mental illness
        Medical care
        Medical care costs
        Medical care laws
        Reinsurance
      sug:
        subj:
          Health insurance
          Mental illness
          Medical care
          Medical care costs
          Medical care laws
          United States
          Direct group life, health and medical insurance carriers
          Direct individual life, health and medical insurance carriers
          Property reinsurance carriers
          Life reinsurance carriers
          Accident and sickness reinsurance carriers
          Automobile reinsurance carriers
          General and other reinsurance carriers
          Liability reinsurance carriers
          Reinsurance Carriers
          Reinsurance
      ab: Objective: In 2014, an estimated 15 million individuals who currently do not have health insurance, including many with chronic mental illness, are expected to obtain coverage through state insurance exchanges. The authors examined how two mechanisms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), namely, risk adjustment and reinsurance, might perform to ensure the financial solvency of health plans that have a disproportionate share of enrollees with mental health conditions. Risk adjustment is an ACA provision requiring that a federal or state exchange move funds from insurance plans with healthier enrollees to plans with sicker enrollees. Reinsurance is a provision in which all plans in the state contribute to an overall pool of money that is used to reimburse costs to individual market plans for expenditures of any individual enrollee that exceed a high predetermined level. Method: Using 2006-2007 claims data from a sample of private and public health plans, the authors compared expected health plan compensation under diagnosis-based risk adjustment with actual health care expenditures, under different assumptions for chronic mental health and medical conditions. Analyses were conducted with and without the addition of $100,000 reinsurance. Results: Risk adjustment performed well for most plans. For some plans with a high share of enrollees with mental health conditions, underpayment was substantial enough to raise concern. Reinsurance appeared to be helpful in addressing the most serious underpayment problems remaining after risk adjustment. Risk adjustment performed similarly for health plan cohorts that had a disproportionate share of enrollees with chronic mental health and medical conditions. Conclusions: Cost models indicate that the regulatory provisions in the ACA requiring risk adjustment and reinsurance can help protect health plans covering treatment for mentally ill individuals against risk selection. This model analysis may be useful for advocates for individuals with mental illness in considering their own state's insurance exchange.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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